SRK Protégé Roshan Abbas Debuts with ‘Always Kabhi Kabhi’

Television and radio anchor, playwright and live show host — that’s Roshan Abbas. But starting this month with the June 17 release of the college comedy “Always Kabhi Kabhi,” Abbas will add film direction to his c.v. and become the third director after Farah Khan and Soham to be launched by Shah Rukh Khan’s banner.

India-West chats up the newbie in the field.

Q: How did “Always Kabhi Kabhi,” your debut film, happen?

A: Last year, I was the host for Shah Rukh Khan’s shows in the U.S., UK and Singapore. In our spare time, we would discuss films and I casually told him that I had this script about four adolescents. He told me to meet him when back in Mumbai for a narration and when that happened seven days later, he loved it.

But because I had written the script in 1999, it had to be updated to 2010. For example, a song about pagers, that were in at that time but are extinct now, had to be dropped. Shah Rukh was pretty clued in about youngsters today and gave his own inputs based on interaction with his sons and fans. We spent six months firming up the script and another six months in pre-production and casting.